Facsimile (fax) technology has been a successful means to transmit documents electronically. With the emergence of publicly accessible data networks and electronic mail (e-mail) applications, it appeared as though fax communications would be rapidly replaced by e-mail. However, it is now clear that the two technologies will co-exist for some time.
A fax server uses specialized interface circuits for converting information communicated by users of a fax service. When a document arrives at the fax server, the fax server converts the document into a format that is suitable for transmission over the PSTN. Thereafter, the fax server sends the converted document over the PSTN via its dedicated interface circuits. Conversely, for a fax arriving at the fax server, the fax server identifies the destination user, converts the incoming fax transmission into a format suitable for delivery to the destination user, and sends the converted document to the destination user over the internal IP network.
In a common enterprise network, the users are not only connected to the fax server via the internal internet protocol (IP) network, but are also connected to an internetworking gateway, which connects the internal IP network to the Internet. The gateway allows a user to communicate electronically with other parties connected to the Internet. Such electronic communications may include store-and-forward messages (e.g., e-mail), real time one-way communications (e.g., live TV), real time two-way communications (e.g., Internet telephony, etc.).
The gateway is typically connected to an Internet Service Provider (ISP). The connection between the gateway and the ISP or the PSTN is typically established via dedicated T1/E1 lines or in some cases optical fiber, similar to the connection between the fax server and the PSTN. Thus, it is apparent that a fax server can be coupled to one or more users by placing the fax server in a local area network (i.e., on the user side of the gateway) or almost anywhere on the world wide web, where the fax server can be accessed and used by multiple subscribers across one or more enterprises.
The portable document format (PDF) is a file format created by Adobe Systems for document exchange. The PDF is used for representing documents in a device-independent and display resolution-independent document format. Each PDF file encapsulates a description of a document that includes the images, and two-dimensional vector graphics that define the document.
Conventional fax-to-email services send and receive fax documents in tagged-image file format (TIFF), which is devoid of text, font, format and other information, and convert the images into PDF files that are attached to an email message addressed to the intended recipient of the fax. Accordingly, the PDF file is limited to the image information sent and received from the original fax.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to develop systems and methods that overcome these shortcomings in the integration and flexibility of fax and e-mail functionality.